{"id":4540,"date":"2011-03-02T21:51:13","date_gmt":"2011-03-03T02:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=9076"},"modified":"2011-03-02T21:51:13","modified_gmt":"2011-03-03T02:51:13","slug":"kurt-busch-hoping-taste-success-las-vegas-%e2%80%9chome-track%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/kurt-busch-hoping-taste-success-las-vegas-%e2%80%9chome-track%e2%80%9d\/","title":{"rendered":"KURT BUSCH HOPING TO TASTE SUCCESS AT LAS VEGAS \u201cHOME TRACK\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

KURT BUSCH HOPING TO TASTE SUCCESS AT LAS VEGAS \u201cHOME TRACK\u201d
\n-No. 22 Pennzoil Ultra Dodge Driver Hoping For Charlotte & Daytona Type Turnaround At LVMS-<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAS VEGAS (Feb. 29, 2011) \u2013 Kurt Busch returns to his hometown this weekend for Sunday\u2019s Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway hoping for another change of fortune. The 2004 NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion, who will be driving the No. 22 Pennzoil Ultra Dodge Charger this weekend, craves success on the track that means so much to him personally.
\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019re coming back to Vegas hoping for the kind of change we\u2019ve experienced at some of the other tracks recently,\u201d said Busch, who finished eighth at Phoenix on Sunday and is up to second-place in the series\u2019 point standings entering this weekend. \u201cWe\u2019re really hoping for the type of turnaround that we\u2019ve enjoyed at tracks like Charlotte (Motor Speedway) and Daytona (International Speedway). We\u2019ve been able to taste success finally on those tracks and Las Vegas Motor Speedway is definitely No. 1 on my \u2018hit list\u2019 now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his 10 career races at LVMS, Busch has yet to win and has only one top-five finish and two top-10s on his resume. While he has an impressive 5.2 average start (his best on any track), he has a 21.9 average finish (his worst on any track). Busch contends that his Vegas luck is bound to turn sooner than later.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have shown a lot of potential through the years in the Vegas races, but we\u2019ve yet to be able to put together many strong showings from beginning to end,\u201d said Busch, who trails younger brother, Kyle, by three points (80 to 77) entering Sunday\u2019s battle on their hometown track. \u201cLast year\u2019s race is pretty representative of how our history has been on the Vegas track.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a really fast Dodge Charger there last year and wound up winning the pole,\u201d Busch said of his fast lap of 28.614 seconds (188.719 mph) that stands as the track\u2019s qualifying record. \u201cWe started out really on the loose side, but had worked to get the car back under us and we were moving back toward the front. On a restart at about the 100-lap mark (Lap 94) Jamie McMurray and (Juan Pablo) Montoya crashed in front of us and I was just a sitting duck and got collected. It was just so typical of how our luck has played out in the Vegas races.\u201d<\/p>\n

Busch\u2019s third-place finish in the 2005 race ranks as his best Vegas finish to date and is his only top-five tally. He has been running at the finish in eight of the races and has finished on the lead lap in five of them. Busch\u2019s three finishes of 35th or worse has taken their toll on his career average finish at LVMS. He has led a total of 53 laps, spread out over five races.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just get a strong feeling that our luck on our home track is going to change for the good this time around,\u201d said Busch. \u201cI only have to look at how things have changed so drastically at tracks like Charlotte and Daytona. I know we can see that trend continue this weekend at Vegas.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Charlotte, Busch had never visited Victory Lane prior to last May. He certainly changed that in an impressive fashion. After coming from behind due to a brush with the wall, he dominated the final portion of the All Star Race and claimed his first victory in nine editions of the special non-points race. Busch came back a week later and posted a dominant win in the Coca-Cola 600, leading 252 of the 400 laps, for his first victory in 20 career CMS Cup races.<\/p>\n

Just a few weeks ago, Busch experienced the most successful Daytona Speed Weeks of his Sprint Cup career. The 2004 series champ won the Budweiser Shootout and his 150-mile qualifying race before having to settle for a fifth-place finish in the Daytona 500.<\/p>\n

For Busch, a Durango High School graduate who cut his racing teeth on \u201cThe Bullring\u201d at LVMS and other short tracks in the Southwest before making it to the NASCAR big leagues, the annual trip to race in his hometown is always special.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust to see all my old friends and hang out is so cool and never gets old,\u201d said Busch, who is spending time early this week enjoying a few days of fun and sun in the Mojave Desert. \u201cThere\u2019s always the special guys you grew up with and the great friends who helped you along the way. I always make it a point to try to spend time with my old short-track teammates and special friends from my old Star Nursery racing days with owner Craig Keough and those guys. It\u2019s that kind of background that only adds to me wanting to win so bad at Vegas. There\u2019s nothing I\u2019d like more than to take that checkered flag and have them all there in Victory Lane celebrating the big win with us.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the projects that I enjoyed a couple of years back was getting my historical photos — the various newspaper clippings organized — trying to get the archives in order,\u201d said Busch. \u201cThere\u2019s this one photo that I have which is one of my favorites — if not my very favorite of all times. I\u2019m posing by my old Hobby Stock car at \u2018The Bullring.\u2019 The angle of this photo makes the background very prominent. In the background, you can see all the big cranes at work and Las Vegas Motor Speedway being built. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat photo really is a neat representation of my career,\u201d Busch said. \u201cI think it depicts what has happened about as well as possible. When I was growing up and racing in Vegas, I just looked at it as something my dad and I could do together and really enjoy spending that time with each other. Not in my wildest dreams back then did I think we\u2019d be where we are in the sport today. That photo will always be super special to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s Sprint Cup schedule at Las Vegas Motor Speedway gets under way with Friday\u2019s practice from 12:00 noon till 1:30 p.m. Coors Light Pole Award qualifying to establish the starting grid for Sunday\u2019s 267-lap battle is set for Friday at 3:40 p.m. local (live on SPEED-TV and PRN Radio). Saturday\u2019s final \u201chappy hour\u201d practice session is scheduled from 10:10 a.m. till 11:25 a.m. Sunday\u2019s Kobalt Tools 400 (400.5 miles\/267 laps) has a scheduled 12:00 p.m. local (3:00 p.m. ET) starting time at the 1.5-mile Las Vegas facility. FOX-TV and PRN Radio will provide live coverage of all the action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KURT BUSCH HOPING TO TASTE SUCCESS AT LAS VEGAS \u201cHOME TRACK\u201d -No. 22 Pennzoil Ultra Dodge Driver Hoping For Charlotte & Daytona Type Turnaround At LVMS- LAS VEGAS (Feb. 29, 2011) \u2013 Kurt Busch returns to his hometown this weekend for Sunday\u2019s Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway hoping for another change of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}